---
aliases:
- Mazzini Society
- Italian-American Mazzini Society
category: Private Organization
created: 2026-10-09
location: New York, New York; Boston, Massachusetts
relations:
- end: 1943
  fn: 2
  reverse: true
  role: first president; Laura Fermi gives the end of the term as 1941 (resignation
    for wartime duties in Washington), Camurri as 1943
  start: 1940
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Max Ascoli]]'
- fn: 3
  reverse: true
  role: organizer and leader; honorary president from 1940; withdrew soon after
  start: 1939
  type: founded
  with: '[[Gaetano Salvemini]]'
- fn: 7
  reverse: true
  role: secretary of the society and editor of Nazioni Unite
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[Alberto Tarchiani]]'
- end: 1943
  fn: 19
  reverse: true
  role: prominent member in New York until October 1943; named leader of the Free
    Italians at Montevideo, August 1942
  start: 1941
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[Carlo Sforza]]'
- end: 1944
  fn: 13
  reverse: true
  role: member during his United States exile; attempted to organize an Italian legion
    in New York
  start: 1941
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[Randolfo Pacciardi]]'
- end: 1942
  fn: 11
  reverse: true
  role: society representative who reported South American recruiting figures to the
    Interdepartmental Committee in March 1942
  start: 1942
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[Serafino Romualdi]]'
- end: 1942
  fn: 15
  role: joint hosts of the Garibaldi day meeting addressed by Dean Acheson, June 1942
  start: 1942
  type: partner_of
  with: '[[Italian-American Labor Council]]'
- fn: 9
  role: subsidy for Italian broadcasts, per the Sydney Morrell memorandum of July
    10, 1941 as quoted by Thomas E. Mahl
  start: 1941
  type: funded
  with: '[[British Security Coordination]]'
summary: Anti-fascist exile society of 1939 or 1940 to about 1946 led by Gaetano Salvemini
  and Max Ascoli, whose weekly Nazioni Unite began in 1942 and whose officers went
  on to hold office in postwar Italy.
tags:
- Organization
- MazziniSociety
- AntiFascism
- ItalianExiles
- NazioniUnite
- GaetanoSalvemini
- MaxAscoli
- AlbertoTarchiani
- CarloSforza
- SerafinoRomualdi
- OSS
- ForeignNationalitiesBranch
- BritishSecurityCoordination
- ItalianLegion
- ItalianAmericanLabor
- WorldWarII
title: Mazzini Society
updated: 2026-10-09
---

The Mazzini Society was an organization of Italian anti-fascist exiles and Italian-Americans, formed in 1939 or 1940 and active until about 1946.[^1][^2] Its leaders included Gaetano Salvemini and [Max Ascoli](/people/max-ascoli/), and its weekly Nazioni Unite was published from 1942.[^2][^3] Several of its officers later held office in the Italian government or diplomatic service.

### Founding and membership, 1939 to 1940

Renato Camurri names the founders as Roberto Bolaffio, Renato Poggioli, Michele Cantarella, Salvemini, Lionello Venturi and Ascoli, and dates the society to 1939.[^1] The Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani entries on Salvemini and Alberto Tarchiani also date it to 1939, the Tarchiani entry stating that it was founded in New York by Salvemini and that he soon withdrew, judging its program by then too pro-American.[^3] Laura Fermi dates its creation to 1940 and writes that Ascoli was appointed its first president and Salvemini its honorary president.[^2] Mark Clark, writing on Salvemini in 2018, describes him as the organizer and leader of the society, which he helped create after Germany invaded [Poland](/places/poland/) in September 1939.[^4]

Lo Stato Operaio, the Communist monthly, wrote in 1942 that the origin of the society lay with Carlo Sforza and Salvemini, followed by Tarchiani, Alberto Cianca, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Randolfo Pacciardi, Aurelio Natoli and Garosci.[^5] The same article wrote that Tarchiani was named general secretary of the society and Cianca secretary of its New York section, that Sforza remained behind the scenes in direction, that the first dispute arose between Sforza and Salvemini, each accusing the other of insufficient independence from the standpoint of Italian national interest, and that the association formally excluded Communists.[^5] It also wrote that the society's total membership, by agreement with its leadership, was exactly 627 in the United States, and that the movement employed several paid staff and published a costly weekly at a high deficit, from which the writer concluded that someone was paying and advising.[^5]

Fermi describes the membership as small but sincerely dedicated to a free, democratic Italy as envisioned by Giuseppe Mazzini.[^2] Fermi also reports Ascoli's recollection that when two members went to the appropriate office of the United States court to register the society, an official rejected their application because it did not bear "Mr. Mazzini's" signature.[^2]

The Garosci named in the 1942 list is probably Aldo Garosci, a leader of Giustizia e Libertà after Carlo Rosselli's murder in 1937, who was in the United States from August 1941 to June 1943. The Dizionario Biografico entry states that he kept apart from the activities of the anti-fascist community in New York, working for Italian-language propaganda services, and that he left in June 1943 with Tarchiani, Cianca and Bruno Zevi aboard the troop transport Queen Mary.[^6][^3] The 1942 article gives no first name, and the records found do not state that Garosci held office in the society.

### Officers

Camurri gives Ascoli's presidency as 1940 to 1943 and adds that Ascoli and his family contributed substantially to the support of the organization.[^1] Fermi writes that he was named president in 1940 and resigned the following year, because the society was based in New York while his wartime duties required him in Washington; at that time, Fermi states, he was associate director of cultural relations in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.[^2] Tarchiani was the society's secretary, and an [Office of Strategic Services](/organizations/office-of-strategic-services/) memorandum of March 6, 1943 describes him as "editor of Nazioni Unite and secretary of the Mazzini Society."[^7]

### Nazioni Unite, radio and the State Department, 1941 to 1942

The society's English-language periodical Mazzini News was replaced in March 1942 by the bilingual Nazioni Unite.[^3] Fermi gives the subtitle as The United Nations: Weekly of the Mazzini Society and quotes its first issue as describing all contributors as "men who uncompromisingly stood against Fascism all their adult lives."[^2] The Trotskyist monthly Fourth International dates the launch to shortly after Pearl Harbor. It states that the Roosevelt administration gave the society a semi-official status and that the [Office of War Information](/organizations/office-of-war-information/) arranged free radio time for its broadcasts.[^8] Fermi writes that the society's political contacts with the American government "were not extensive and, at least at the beginning, limited to the Intelligence Service."[^2]

In early 1941 the society was broadcasting from Boston to Italy, according to Fermi.[^2] The [British Security Coordination](/organizations/british-security-coordination/) account, as quoted by Thomas E. Mahl, stated that BSC had close ties with the Italian-American Mazzini Society, headed by Ascoli, and that BSC began to supply the WRUL shortwave station "through cut-outs." A July 1941 memorandum by the Special Operations Executive officer Sydney Morrell, as quoted by Mahl, records that another subsidy was paid to the Mazzini Society for Italian broadcasts in the same passage that describes WRUL.[^9]

On June 14, 1941, the society wrote to Attorney General Robert H. Jackson asking for an investigation of the relations between the newspapers of Generoso Pope and the propaganda division of the Italian government. The letter stated that the leading executives and editorial writers of the Pope newspapers were members of the Italian Fascist party.[^10]

### The Italian legion proposal, 1942 to 1943

At the Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Nationality Problems, which met at the [State Department](/organizations/state-department/) under [Adolf A. Berle](/people/adolf-berle/) from February to April 1942, Ascoli reported on information received from [Serafino Romualdi](/people/serafino-romualdi/), "a representative of the Mazzini Society just returned from South America." The minutes record the estimate that perhaps 1,500 anti-Fascist Italians might be recruited, with the strongest interest in [Uruguay](/places/uruguay/), and a proposal to cable the embassy at Montevideo about a "Garibaldi Legion" recruiting in Uruguay and [Argentina](/places/argentina/).[^11] The same memorandum records Salvemini's view that the number of probable recruits was "undoubtedly excessive," and his suggestion that a small Italian cadre be formed in the United States and sent to Africa as "missionaries."[^11]

The committee was also told that the War Department had gone on record against an Italian legion with its own officers and under the Italian flag, on military grounds.[^11] DeWitt C. Poole and Colonel Goodfellow reported a preliminary discussion with Colonel Pacciardi, who thought perhaps 300 Italians could be recruited for special units.[^11] Pacciardi reached New York on December 26, 1941, and the Dizionario Biografico states that in the days after Pearl Harbor the society organized lists of volunteers willing to fight in an Italian legion, with Pacciardi regarding himself as its commander in waiting.[^12] His official biography from the Camera dei deputati records that in New York he attempted to form an Italian legion to fight alongside the Anglo-American forces against the Nazis, and that he asked [Charles de Gaulle](/people/charles-de-gaulle/), through [Pierre Mendès France](/people/pierre-mendes-france/), to associate that legion with the Free French movement.[^13] The Dizionario Biografico dates the fading of the legion hope from January 1943 and the unconditional surrender formula.[^12]

The Free Italian congress at Montevideo in August 1942 named Sforza leader of the Free Italians. Fermi notes that this movement, unlike the Mazzini Society, included Italian Communists.[^2] The Fourth International gives August 17, 1942 as the date the congress resolved on a National Council with Sforza as president.[^8]

### Anti-fascist and anti-Communist splits

Lo Stato Operaio reported that at a congress of the society a proposal from the Republican group to take the initiative in a wider front of anti-fascist action, without exclusion of any political tendency, was rejected by 627 votes to 238, with the members almost all represented.[^5] The same account gives Ascoli, as president of the society and an official of the American government, as telling the congress that before the American government "any rapprochement with the Communists would be extremely harmful" (in the periodical's Italian, "qualsiasi avvicinamento ai comunisti sarebbe estremamente nocivo"), and has Augusto Bellanca saying that all the society's successes with the American authorities depended on its reputation as liberals untainted by extremist infiltration.[^5]

The Fourth International described the society as holding "none too firm" authority among Italian-American trade unionists, with a left wing in the semi-socialist publication group Quaderni Italiani. It describes Communists and "Stalinists" entering the Italian-American Victory Councils that followed the order removing Italians from enemy-alien status. In that account, the society's national officers refused to sit with the councils' Fascist-linked members, and local chapters in Chicago and St. Louis then entered the councils on the government's wish.[^8]

### Labor ties and the Italian-American Labor Council

The Italian-American Labor Council (IALC) was formed on December 20, 1941, ten days after Mussolini's declaration of war on the United States, with Luigi Antonini, head of Local 89 (Italian Dressmakers) and first vice-president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, as the pivotal force; David Dubinsky, the union's president, encouraged him to form it. Its founding members included Carlo Tresca, and it claimed affiliates with 300,000 members by the end of its first year. On January 31, 1942 it held a "Freedom Rally" at Madison Square Garden attended by 22,000.[^14]

On June 3, 1942, [Dean Acheson](/people/dean-acheson/), then Assistant Secretary of State, released an address to Americans of Italian descent. He had been invited by the Mazzini Society and the Italian-American Labor Council to speak at a gathering held on the day dedicated to the memory of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The address stated that "the liberation of the Italian and other peoples from the military cliques which hold them in their clutches is one of the war aims of the United Nations."[^15] The Fourth International describes the same meeting as lending the society government approval.[^8]

### Office of Strategic Services reporting

The Foreign Nationalities Branch of the Office of Strategic Services reported on the society. A branch position report of March 11, 1942 records that, in connection with a report on Greek politics in the Western Hemisphere, cooperation was being established with "Dr. Ascoli, Associate Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs."[^16]

The branch's memorandum No. 111 of March 6, 1943, "Confusion Among Liberal and Socialist Italian and Spanish Anti-Fascists in the United States," states that the Mazzini Society "has been shaken by a series of internal disputes and crises and is much weakened by the resultant confusion," that it "still maintains itself as the leading non-party, liberal anti-fascist organization," and that there was "a growing list of ex-members who were formerly important in its leadership," with the drift of such ex-members in the direction of the Communist-led Alleanza Garibaldi in [Mexico City](/places/mexico-city/). It describes the Italian leadership and the Spanish Acción Republicana Española as occupied, at the time of the August 1942 Montevideo Conference and shortly after, with strengthening intergroup unity, "combat legions" and national committees. It quotes Tarchiani's editorial of February 25, 1943 in Nazioni Unite, which called the Darlan policy in North Africa "pernicious." A Secretariat summary of the memorandum went to [William J. Donovan](/people/william-j-donovan/) on March 27, 1943.[^7]

Clark writes that Salvemini supplied a list of Italian-Americans engaged in fascist activities to the [Federal Bureau of Investigation](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/), the [Office of Naval Intelligence](/organizations/office-of-naval-intelligence/), Army Intelligence, the Dies Committee and the Coordinator of Information, the predecessor of the Office of Strategic Services. Clark dates the FBI's interest in Salvemini from 1940 to 1944, and states that between 1944 and 1945 the agency intercepted, translated and distributed a large portion of his correspondence.[^4]

### British Security Coordination and Fight for Freedom

Mahl describes Fight for Freedom as a British intelligence front. He cites Mark Chadwin as listing Ascoli among its particularly generous donors, and states that Ascoli "was also working for British intelligence through his Italian-American Mazzini Society."[^9] The Princeton University finding aid for Fight for Freedom, Inc. lists a correspondence folder headed "Ascoli, Max, 1941."[^17]

### State Department dealings and Sforza's return, 1943

On September 2, 1943, Berle recorded a meeting with Sforza, who had come in at Berle's request. Sforza said he had applied to the British Embassy, which had welcomed the idea, cabled London and been turned down. Berle told him that passage could not be arranged beyond North Africa at that time, and that the State Department had decided to permit him to go to North Africa "in a purely private capacity and on his own responsibility."[^18] Sforza left New York on October 6, 1943.[^19]

By October 20, 1943, Sforza had met Pietro Badoglio, whom he told that he would give the government full support, meaning that he would not at present join it. The American mission at Brindisi reported Sforza's statement that he would use his influence to get the Italian people to follow a government composed of decent people.[^20] A late October 1943 telegram from Naples reported that Sforza and Benedetto Croce refused to join the Badoglio government while the King remained, and proposed the King's abdication in favor of the Prince of Naples.[^20]

### Members in the postwar government and diplomatic service

Tarchiani, who had returned to Italy in 1943, served as minister of public works in the second Badoglio government (April to June 1944). Sforza proposed him as Italian representative in Washington, and he was designated in February 1945; his term as ambassador ran from 1945 to 1955.[^3] A State Department memorandum of March 6, 1945 refers to him as "the Appointed Ambassador of Italy to the United States."[^21]

Sforza, minister without portfolio under Badoglio and in the first Bonomi government, was named foreign minister by Alcide De Gasperi in February 1947 and left the post in July 1951.[^19] A letter from Tarchiani to the Secretary of State dated June 16, 1947 refers to Sforza as the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs.[^22]

Pacciardi left New York on June 7, 1944 by air for North Africa, where OSS agents met him at Casablanca and escorted him to Algiers, and reached Naples on June 29, 1944.[^12] He entered the De Gasperi government as deputy prime minister in late December 1947 and was minister of defence from May 23, 1948 to July 7, 1953, across three De Gasperi governments.[^13]

### Dissolution

Fermi dates the society's weekly to 1942 to 1946, and a 1976 study of the society by M. Tirabassi is titled for the years 1940 to 1946.[^2][^3] Fermi records that when the liberation of Italy began, the first exiles returned to Italy and direct communication was opened between them and the anti-Fascist groups there.[^2] Tarchiani and Garosci sailed in June 1943, Sforza left in October 1943 and Pacciardi in June 1944.[^3][^19][^12]

[^1]: Renato Camurri, biographical note, "Max Ascoli 1898 - 1978," Senato della Repubblica, Archivio storico, federated fonds Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Max Ascoli, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/inventario/howard-gotlieb-archival-research-center/max-ascoli (Italian; translated).
[^2]: Laura Fermi, *Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe, 1930-41* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 118-119 (Mazzini Society, Nazioni Unite, the registration anecdote, the contacts sentence), pp. 283-284 (Ascoli's presidency, resignation and CIAA post), reference notes (Nazioni Unite, 1942-1946), https://archive.org/details/illustriousimmig0000unse.
[^3]: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entries "Tarchiani, Alberto" and "Salvemini, Gaetano," Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana (Treccani), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/alberto-tarchiani_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ and https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gaetano-salvemini_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (Italian; translated). The Tarchiani entry cites Tirabassi, "La Mazzini Society (1940-1946). Un'associazione degli antifascisti italiani negli Stati Uniti," in *Italia e America dalla grande guerra ad oggi* (Padua, 1976), pp. 141-158.
[^4]: Mark Clark, "Gaetano Salvemini, 1873-1957," Transatlantic Perspectives, German Historical Institute, published April 11, 2018, https://www.transatlanticperspectives.org/entries/gaetano-salvemini/.
[^5]: *Lo Stato Operaio*, vol. II, nos. 6-7 (June-July 1942), article "Il Congresso della Mazzini," https://archive.org/details/lo-stato-operaio_june-july-1942_2_6-7 (Italian; translated). Communist party monthly; the statements on funding, membership and the congress are the periodical's own.
[^6]: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entry "Garosci, Aldo," Treccani, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/aldo-garosci_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (Italian; translated).
[^7]: CIA-RDP13X00001R000100180008-7, Office of Strategic Services, Foreign Nationalities Branch organization file (1942-43), https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100180008-7: Secretariat memorandum to Colonel Donovan, March 27, 1943 (PDF p. 154); FNB memorandum No. 111, March 6, 1943, "Foreign Nationality Groups in the United States," pp. 1-3 (PDF pp. 157-159).
[^8]: *Fourth International*, June 1943, vol. 4, no. 6, article on Washington's policy toward the Italian anti-fascist emigres, https://archive.org/details/sim_international-socialist-review_1943-06_4_6. Trotskyist monthly.
[^9]: Thomas E. Mahl, *Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44* (Washington: Brassey's, 1998), pp. 24, 31 and 190, with the passages quoting the BSC Account and the Sydney Morrell memorandum SO.1 of July 10, 1941 (PRO FO 898/103). The Fight for Freedom characterization and Chadwin's donor list are Mahl's own.
[^10]: *The Hour*, No. 101, June 14, 1941, p. 2, https://archive.org/details/hour_1941-06-14_101.
[^11]: Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Nationality Problems, minutes and memoranda, filed under an Office of Strategic Services heading, CIA reading room, CIA-RDP13X00001R000100370009-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100370009-5: minutes of the sixth meeting (March 11, 1942), pp. 17-18; memorandum to Colonel Donovan (March 11, 1942), pp. 22-24; Berle's letter of February 27, 1942 and the War Department reply; the report on Colonel Pacciardi.
[^12]: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entry "Pacciardi, Randolfo," Treccani, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/randolfo-pacciardi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (Italian; translated).
[^13]: Camera dei deputati, Archivio storico, biography of Randolfo Pacciardi, https://archivio.camera.it/resources/pu01/allegati/pacciardi.pdf (Italian; translated).
[^14]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, Guide to the Records of the Italian-American Labor Council (WAG.091), historical note, https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/wag_091/all.
[^15]: *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. VI, no. 154 (June 6, 1942), "Address by Assistant Secretary Acheson to Americans of Italian Descent," released to the press June 3, https://archive.org/details/sim_department-of-state-bulletin_1942-06-06_6_154.
[^16]: CIA-RDP13X00001R000100180008-7, Foreign Nationalities Branch, "Position and Relations as of March 11, 1942," p. 1 (PDF p. 248), https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp13x00001r000100180008-7.
[^17]: Princeton University Library, Fight for Freedom, Inc. Records (MC025), Series 1 Correspondence, folder "Ascoli, Max, 1941," https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC025_c00024.
[^18]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943*, vol. II, memorandum of conversation by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle), September 2, 1943, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943v02.
[^19]: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entry "Sforza, Carlo," Treccani, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/carlo-sforza_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (Italian; translated).
[^20]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943*, vol. II, telegram from Murphy (Algiers), October 21, 1943, 3 p.m., and telegrams of late October 1943 on the Naples group, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943v02.
[^21]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945*, vol. IV, memorandum of conversation by the Assistant Secretary of State (Dunn), March 6, 1945, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v04.
[^22]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947*, vol. III, letter from Tarchiani to the Secretary of State, June 16, 1947, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v03.


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